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Avoid the Nog Slog

EGGNOG, like the holiday office party, is often better in theory than in practice. Liquid nostalgia, it tugs at the heartstrings like a vision of Mrs. Claus proffering a tray of gingerbread cookies — it’s a roly-poly drink with a twinkle in its eye, the most warmhearted and virtuous of all our alcoholic beverages.

Yet its base, a rich-as-sugarplums combination of eggs, milk, sugar and cream can often go down like the batter it is: thick, cloying, sating to the point of bed rest.

“It does seem like something to dip bread into for French toast,” said Connor Coffey, the general manager and beverage director at the Red Cat, the Chelsea bistro near 23rd Street that anchors the row of restaurants on 10th Avenue. Not long ago, the Red Cat welcomed the holiday season by adding eggnog to its cocktail list — a traditional nog, of the grandmotherly variety. “It was a humbling experience,” Mr. Coffey said. “It went over like the Hindenburg.”

Faced with this nonreaction, Mr. Coffey had several options. He could have imbued his nog with Manhattan grandiloquence, as the sommelier Bruce Yung has done at davidburke & donatella in Midtown, where a potion of eggs and cream spiked with bourbon, Calvados and Goldschläger is served in the shell of an Australian ostrich egg.

Or he could have injected his nog with multicultural flair, as Calle Ocho, on the Upper West Side, has done with its coquito, a Puerto Rican spin on eggnog that has coconut milk swirled into the creamy mix.

Or added a dash of wit, that quintessential New York ingredient, as seen in “Eggnog Two Ways” at 7 Square, on 49th Street, where an eggnog chaser accompanies an eggnog crème brûlée on the dessert menu.

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Mr. Coffey chose that route. Still, he’s no Grinch. Two weeks ago, he unveiled the holiday replacement for his woebegone eggnog: an effervescent riff on the classic sidecar, in which Cognac mingles with Aperol, a bitter-orange liqueur, and Brachetto d’Acqui, a sweet and bubbly Italian wine. Call it the anti-nog. Yet it’s not without its festive trappings: the drink is as crimson as a Santa suit, and the merger of the bitter Aperol and sweet Brachetto yields a flavor reminiscent of cranberries.

“And it’s kind of punchy,” said Mr. Coffey, which is why he bills it as a punch. Sweet, with a hint of bitterness: a cocktail tailor made for the holiday season in New York.

Combine the first four ingredients with ice in a cocktail shaker; shake and strain into a champagne flute or martini glass, and fill the rest of the glass with the Brachetto d’Acqui. Garnish with the orange twist.